Gentleman punt-gunners brought a bit more sophistication to the guns used. Hawker, active as a shooter during the early to mid-1800s, developed the double punt-gun. Hawker bought a cottage near Lymington and, from there, expanded his interest in wildfowling.

It`s taken a mate of mine some twenty five years of badgering to get a look at some of the UK located copies of the original documents.Journal of a regimental officer during the recent campaign in Portugal and Spain under Lord Viscount Wellington, Colonel Peter Hawker, Reprinted 1910. Specification of the Patent granted to Peter Hawker, of Long-Parish House, near Andover, in the County of. Hants, Major in the Army; for a Machine, Instrument, or Apparatus to assist in the Attainment of proper Performance on the Piano-Forte, or other keyed Instruments. Dated November 1, 1820 Hawker designed a Breach Loading swivel gun mounted on a four wheeled carriage, a model of which is reportedly on display at the Rotunda, Woolwich [13] Hawker designed a breech-loading swivel gun mounted on a four-wheeled carriage, a model of which was reportedly on display at the Rotunda, Woolwich. [11] A History of Firearms: From Earliest Times to 1914 By W. Y. Carman, 1955, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, londonP74

Hawker, Peter (1893). The Diary of Colonel Peter Hawker, 1802-1853. Vol.2. London: Longmans, Green & Co – via Internet Archive. I`m doing some other research into Hawkers original diaries which is very slow going since, in later life, his handwriting was almost illegible. To do that you need a boat. If you shoot a bird from a boat and it falls on land, it belongs to the landowner; if it lands in the sea, it is yours.

Colonel Peter Hawker (24 November 1786 – 7 August 1853) [1] was a celebrated diarist and author, and a shooting sportsman accounted one of the "great shots" of the 19th century. [2] His sporting exploits were widely followed and on occasion considered worth reporting in The Times. [3] Early life [ edit ] Wilkie, G.; Wilkie, T. (1821). "Specification of the Patent granted to Peter Hawker, of Long-Parish House, near Andover, in the County of Hants, Major in the Army; for a Machine, Instrument, or Apparatus to assist in the Attainment of proper Performance on the Piano-Forte, or other keyed Instruments". The Repertory of Patent Inventions: And Other Discoveries and Improvements in Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture. Vol.39. p.266. Hawker was a keen amateur musician, studying the piano under Henri Bertini and regularly playing the organ at his local church. [9] This interest in music was not limited to playing. He devised and patented a device to assist in piano teaching: his "hand moulds". [10] Development of firearms [ edit ] Peter Hawker (Mounted on Grey) talking to Joe Manton 1 September 1827.

Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey’s gun was also of 1½in bore but it was double barrelled and 9ft long. It had one trigger that was selective — either right, left or both barrels could be chosen. Like Hawker’s gun, when both barrels were fired, there was a slight delay between detonation, allowing for the birds to rise into the second charge. In later life Hawker designed a "military musket" and commissioned the manufacture of several prototypes at his own expense. Hawker's musket was favourably received by the Board of Ordnance, but it was not adopted, being set aside in preference to the Enfield Rifle-Musket, although elements of Hawker's design were incorporated into the final version of the Enfield. [12] Family life [ edit ] Hawker is best known today for his published works on the sports of shooting, wildfowling and fishing. Hawker published his “Advice to Young Sportsmen” in 1814, a popular work having nine imprints in his lifetime with the latest paper edition printed in 1975. Forty years after Hawker's death an Australian book reviewer states that "Probably no book on the subject of sport ever enjoyed so wide or so long sustained a popularity as the "Instructions to Young Sportsmen". [6] Hawker kept a regular diary (published in abridged form) which contains observations of pre and post-Napoleonic Europe, wildfowling, game-bird shooting and details of hunting techniques and conditions prevalent in the late 18th and early 19th Century. His diary, printed in two volumes, was also a popular work with the last paper edition printed in 1988. Most punt-guns are crude, single-barrel devices; ironmongery rather than fine gunmaking. They have to endure frequent dousing in salt water and the rigours of being hauled in and out of the sea in rough weather by tired men with cold hands. Holland & Holland first notes the manufacture of a punt-gun in 1872 and thereafter made several, improving on the design each time. A typical Holland & Holland punt-gun of the 1880s was the London, which was a single-barrel breechloading gun, 8½ft long, weighing 100lb and of 1½in bore.

Ocr tesseract 5.1.0-1-ge935 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9743 Ocr_module_version 0.0.16 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-0001254 Openlibrary_edition Archbold, W. A. J. (2005). "Peter Hawker". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/12654 . Retrieved 15 July 2015. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) The Diary of Colonel Peter Hawker, Author of 'Instructions to Young Sportsmen', 1802-1853, Vol. 2 of 2: With an Introduction (Classic Reprint) [Soft Cover ] Journal of a regimental officer during the recent campaign in Portugal and Spain under Lord Viscount Wellington, Colonel Peter Hawker, 1910. [4] The fact that your associate wants to keep information to himself is a bit of a pity but I can understand it as my brother researches the story of soldiers killed in WW 1 and feels the same way. I often wonder what the sales figures would be for a book on Hawker considering that all his books are now in the public domain . Someone may be able to make a phd thesis out of it but just how much interest modern shooters would have in it is questionable. I just had my curiosity raised by Sir Ralph Payne Gallweys statement that he could have produced more books from the original manuscripts and remarks in his diary like the ordnance used some of my ideas in the Enfield P53 but unwisely not all of them - you just want to known what he was referring to .